


In Your Heart Shall Burn a Little Bit Longer

by 3jarsofbees



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Dragon Age Quest: In Your Heart Shall Burn, Gen, Haven (Dragon Age)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-18
Updated: 2017-01-18
Packaged: 2018-09-18 10:44:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,304
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9381107
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/3jarsofbees/pseuds/3jarsofbees
Summary: How did your three party members possibly survive the avalanche coming down on Haven during "In Your Heart Shall Burn"... and why would they agree to come along on that suicide mission in the first place?An answer of sorts -- together with Cassandra, Dorian, Solas, and a healthy dose of bickering.





	

* * *

"And what of your escape?" Cullen asked.

 _Great,_ Lavellan thought. _So we're just pointing out my impending death now. This is exactly how I wanted things to go here._

Fair enough, he had been pretty much expecting to die any day now. If it wasn't the pulsing green thing in his palm, or one of those creatures made entirely out of pointy red lyrium bits, or else some unfathomable act of time wizardry -- then it would probably be one of the many fanatical humans around here who were convinced he was either their savior or some murderous heretic. Some of them even seemed to think he was both, however that possibly made sense. These very people had access to knives and they knew where he slept. Nothing could turn out well under circumstances like that.

Still, Lavellan had hoped his imminent demise would be unexpected. A deranged villager stabbing him in the night. Or maybe a flash of green energy sizzling him into ash. Not purposefully marching straight out into burning Haven and being eaten alive (probably) by some Red Templar Behemoth. 

But if he really had to welcome death so openly, he would at _least_ like to do so without being prodded to acknowledge it out loud. _Doesn't the sweet release of denial mean anything to these people?_

Fortunately, Cullen seemed to pick up this sentiment via the state of Lavellan's eyebrows. After a moment, he cleared his throat and said, "Perhaps you will find a way."

"Sure," Lavellan said. "Just -- go on. Get these people out of here."

As Cullen strode off through the Chantry, shepherding people after Roderick, Lavellan turned to his companions, steeling himself for more unwanted acknowledgements of his mortality. Instead, Cassandra said, "If you are doing this, it will not be alone."

"I can't ask you to--"

"I did not ask what you thought," Cassandra said. That was supposed to be heartfelt, probably. "I refuse to turn my back on whatever this monster is."

"I will go with you as well," Solas said. "I would like to see for myself what sort of magic this Elder One wields."

"Well, then, I suppose I'll have to come along too," Dorian said. "I do hate being left out."

"You can't be serious," Lavellan said. "You do realize this is a death trap?"

Dorian shrugged airily. "Now, I've just seen what happens to the world when you aren't in it. Better to go out spectacularly than hang around waiting to become some nasty red lyrium farm, wouldn't you say? And who knows -- perhaps I'll find some way to save the day for you yet again."

Cassandra rolled her eyes at this. 

"That... would be appreciated," Lavellan said. "But... the Inquisition is still going to need all of you when this is over. And the 'Elder One' is only after me."

"You cannot aim a trebuchet and fight off Red Templars at the same time," Cassandra said.

"Cassandra is right: the village is overrun," Solas said. "You will surely require more than just a few soldiers for this. We can protect you properly while you take aim."

"And if there is any chance we can stop this 'Elder One,'" Cassandra said, "I would like to know I did everything in my power to take it."

Lavellan was now frowning at all of them. In truth, he didn't relish stepping back out into that flaming disaster-town without their help. But how could he possibly rationalize leading them into certain death?

Perhaps there would be time for them to get away? Probably not. Almost certainly not. But -- perhaps. At the very least he could pretend there was, to drown out the howling guilt of this moment. "Listen to me: The moment we get that thing aimed and I tell you to go, you will _go._ No questions asked. No coming back for me. Will you promise me that?"

"You're asking us to just abandon you?"

"Please, Cassandra. I can't agree to this in good conscience otherwise."

"If that is what you want, then I will promise," Solas said.

"Not a bad deal for us, really," Dorian said.

"But surely--"

"There's no time to argue about this, Cassandra," Lavellan said. "Please just say yes."

Cassandra sighed. "Very well, then."

* * *

There was an almost amusing futility, Dorian thought, in trying to outrun an avalanche. That he, Cassandra and Solas were pretending to do so in this moment was perhaps a gesture of goodwill to Lavellan, who had ordered them away the second the trebuchet was aimed and was clearly doing his best to buy them time before he launched it. Trying awfully hard, the poor doomed lamb.

As pointless as it had already felt, things hit a new level of absurdity when the three of them reached the Chantry steps and turned back to see that horrifying dragon creature swooping down for a landing on their lonely Herald's form.

Cassandra instinctively took a step forward -- and was quickly grabbed by one mage at either arm.

"We cannot help him now," Solas said.

"That thing will devour him," Cassandra said. "He won't be able to fire the trebuchet--"

"Then we can only hope it doesn't immediately turn to devouring us," Dorian said.

"We made him a promise, Seeker," Solas said. "The best we can do is appreciate his sacrifice."

They made for the Chantry door, then, with the howling screech of the dragon prickling up the backs of their necks. It had been awful enough to look at, Dorian thought -- but without a visual, the imagination of what that creature might now be doing to Lavellan was a hundred times worse. 

They followed the path of trampled boot-snow through the Chantry and down to the dank little underground passage, adorned with hanging roots and cobwebs, that would lead them to the pilgrimage path on the mountainside. Although hurrying might have been prudent, the three of them were plodding rather despondently through the semi-dark, mulling the details of their situation in silence. If they somehow made it out of Haven, would that even matter now, with no one to seal the rifts? Had this Elder One just sealed his victory?

And suddenly the entire world began to roar and shudder, fine dirt and bits of shale raining down on them from above.

They stumbled for the nearest alcove. "The avalanche," Solas said, huddling against the stone like a cornered cat. "He has managed it!"

"That's it then," Dorian said, sounding somewhere between grave and astounded. "Poor bastard..."

Cassandra only stared straight ahead, hands braced against the shaking wall, her face a seeming admonishment to the tunnel itself -- like it had better not even _think_ of trying to collapse on her. 

With the sheer scale of these tremors leaving them paralyzed, there was nothing to do but wait, fearfully silent, as time passed loudly and agonizingly slowly -- ample time to wait and wonder what it all looked like, what scenes of destruction were being waged directly above their heads. What lives were being snuffed out, and how horribly? Had the rest of the Inquisition escaped this fate? Were they rather being forced to watch this devastation unfold from up in the mountains? And -- being pinned directly under the avalanche as they currently were -- what were the odds that this trio would ever make it out to join them?

The rumbling had shaken so deep into their cores that it was almost difficult to tell when it was finally subsiding. Residual vibrations had taken hold in their limbs, and for a moment none of them seemed to want to tempt fate -- as if taking a single step might kick it all off again.

At last Cassandra broke the silence, pushing off the wall and striding on forward: "We must hurry."

They found the exit to the mountainside soon enough -- or, rather, the place where the exit had previously been. The avalanche had carted in a rather impenetrable pile of snow and ice, which now filled in the mouth of the passage from top to bottom. 

"Then we are trapped here," Cassandra said.

"Surely 'starving in a dark cave' can't be our _first_ resort," Dorian said. "What do you think, Solas? I can melt snow easily enough, but then we risk bringing even more down on our heads..."

"Yes, we will need to be careful. What of combining heat application with a protective barrier?"

"Say, that's an idea. If you could keep the barrier steady, I could spread an even distribution of heat around it. Then anything that came near us would melt..."

"Perhaps I could also release a minor cold spell behind us. That way, rather than the lot of it collapsing in our wake..."

"A tunnel of ice! Now, _that_ is a brilliant--"

Cassandra said, "I would rather this be _fast_ than _elegant_ , if you gentlemen do not mind."

"Have you no appreciation for magical wonders?" Dorian asked. "Especially ones that are about to save your life?"

"Just get on with it, if you please," Cassandra said. " _If_ we survive, then I promise I shall shower you with praise at a later date."

Dorian smiled broadly -- and Solas cut in with, "Very well, Seeker... Dorian, are you ready?" 

After a muttered consultation on a few finer details, they directed Cassandra to stand between them. And then came that odd warm plunge of a barrier enveloping them in a crackle of blue light, and then Dorian sent up some kind of sparking substance that slowly pooled about the outside of this barrier, like liquid bleeding into cloth, with heat radiating out from it.

"I need more fire on my left--"

" _Yes_ , I know that, Solas, thank you," Dorian said, his nose wrinkling up with effort. "Nearly there..."

"Now, we must keep in step with one another," Solas said. "My barrier is focused on Cassandra, so we should not stray apart from her. Can you maintain the heat the way it is, Dorian?"

"Yes, fine," Dorian said, "but no one had better step on my heels or we might be in trouble..."

They eyed each other for a moment, the idea of taking a step suddenly feeling like a complicated proposition.

"Perhaps we should... link arms?" Solas said.

Another pause. Then Dorian held out his left arm, and Solas passed his staff to his left hand and held out his right. Cassandra sighed, then linked her arms through each of theirs. "Are we ready, then?"

"My goodness, yes," Dorian said -- still looking a bit pressed, but with a half-grin. "This is rather adorable. I feel like we're headed off to the fair."

"Concentrate," Cassandra said. "On my count, we walk..."

Though they each held their breath as they met the wall of snow, anticipating a face full of the stuff, it miraculously did melt away in front of them. One thing they hadn't anticipated, however, was the sheer violence of the snow's reaction. Plumes of white-hot steam billowed about them before hitting Solas's cold spell and freezing into jagged clouds behind them.

"Could you not bring the heat down, Dorian?" Solas asked, a hint of alarm in his voice.

"Yes, yes, one moment! I don't usually have cause to _gently warm_ people..."

The three of them were instinctively hunched down into their shoulders, eyes trained on the roiling steam and the mass of snow swallowing them up from all sides, their arms still locked, taking small shuffling steps in tandem. Cassandra rather felt like they were a trio of frightened senior citizens clinging to each other for support.

As Dorian carefully reduced the heat, the snow's reaction changed to a veritable flood of meltwater, streaming down the sides of their barrier and even more thoroughly obscuring their vision.

" _Is this actually better?_ " Dorian asked, raising his voice to be heard over the gushing.

" _I rather preferred the steam_ ," Cassandra said.

" _Surely you could fix the temperature somewhere in between the two?_ " Solas asked.

"Oh, for -- _I'm sorry this isn't quite so easy as casting a bloody barrier! I'd say you ought to give it a try if it were possible to switch without suffocating ourselves instantly!_ "

" _I am sorry, Dorian, you are doing fine!_ "

" _Thank you!_ "

Nonetheless, as Cassandra continued to shuffle them forward she noticed the heat gradually ticking up, and in a minute they were back to a less violent cloud of steam smoking off them, a rather inelegant and wobbly tunnel forming in their wake.

"Top marks for planning," Dorian muttered. "Bare pass for execution..."

"It does not matter," Solas said. "Look, ahead -- can you see that? I believe that is the sky."

Through drifting steam and the whirling light of their heated barrier, they could just make it out -- a parting in the snow above, with a distant few stars winking into view. "Oh, thank the Maker," Cassandra said.

"You could thank us, too," Dorian said. "I mean, you did promise me a shower of praise, did you not?"

"That was sarcasm, Dorian. Somehow I assumed you had heard of it."

"Ha! Now I'm getting cheek from Cassandra. Will wonders never cease?"

"And it appears we have successfully escaped an avalanche," Solas said, finally letting out a hint of a smile. "I suppose we are having that sort of day."

* * *

Even having been safely delivered to the mountainside, however improbably, and treading through manageable ankle-high snow in search of their forces, their moment of victory was short-lived. Here in the mountains, above the buried ruin of Haven, they were back to mulling over the enormous reality of what they now had to confront. For a time, the two mages just trudged after Cassandra, who was striding ahead of them in stony silence.

"So," Dorian said at length. "Without Lavellan around to vouch for us... just how accommodating do you think the Inquisition will continue to be of us terrible apostates?"

Solas smiled back thinly. "The thought has occurred to me as well."

"We are not disloyal to those who have helped our cause," Cassandra snapped. 

"You say that like no one has been eyeing us with suspicion thus far," Dorian said. 

"That's enough," Cassandra said. "We are in plenty of trouble here as it is. Your cynicism is neither helpful nor necessary." 

"But cynicism is the shield with which I make my way through this cruel world. Whatever do you expect me to do without it?" 

"Let us focus on finding the camp, Dorian. There will be plenty of people there with the time to listen to your idle chatter."

"Oh, you wound me." 

"I am certainly capable of it, if that's the only way to make you silent." 

"Point taken." 

"Then be quiet."

"All right, I will, then."

"Stop."

Solas shook his head almost imperceptibly. _Children_ , he thought, and strode ahead of them both. "This way. I see a light."

* * *

Camp. A warm relief full of reassuring activity and crackling fires and eager faces, all staring at them as if they'd just risen from the dead. Which, to be fair...

"Thank the Maker you're safe," Cullen was saying, as people whirled around them and checked their vitals and wrapped blankets about their shoulders. "But what of Lavellan?"

"He sent us ahead," Cassandra said. "We do not know if he survived." 

"I am all for hoping against hope, Cassandra," Dorian said -- sounding for once not sarcastic, but rather just exhausted -- "but after all that? If he survived it would be a miracle." 

Cassandra looked coldly at him. "And it would not be the first one he has managed." 

Before Dorian could respond, she turned back to Cullen. "Let us discuss our next step," she said, and together they strode off, speaking of rescue missions and mountain patrols and similarly fruitless plans.

"Such faith that woman has," Dorian said -- only to realize that Solas had also vanished on him. Off to ruminate on the Fade in some dark corner, no doubt. Fortunately, Dorian barely had the chance to start feeling lonely before he was seized and dragged to a toasty fireside by Sera and Varric, who were practically frothing with meddlesome questions. (They also shoved a cup of something alcoholic into his hands -- so it was a fair enough trade.)

"Good you made it, yeah?" Sera said. "You scared us a bit."

"Thank you," Dorian said. "But you'll excuse me if I don't feel particularly victorious." 

"So, Lavellan... isn't coming back, is he?" Varric asked. 

"Technically, we didn't see what happened," Dorian said. "But I can't imagine how he might've survived. There was that archdemon business on one side of him, that 'Elder One' on the other, not to mention the entire mountainside dumped on top of them..." 

"Shit," Varric said.

"Piss," Sera said. 

"Both of those things, yes," Dorian said. "It's... a real shame."

"So what are we meant to _do_ now?" Sera asked. "Without our Herald person, what are we, even?" 

"Shit out of luck, I'm guessing," Varric said. 

It seemed a fair enough estimate of their current circumstances. Reason enough to quietly drown their sorrows in a series of drinks, late into the evening. Right up until Cassandra and Cullen came rushing back into camp with a retinue of soldiers and a frostbitten bundle.

Sera slapped Dorian rather hard across the chest, and the three of them scrambled to their feet. "Is that--"

Yes, apparently. There he actually was, being laid out on a cot -- curls of hair stuck to a bloody gash swiping down his forehead, his lips practically blue with cold -- but distinctly alive. 

"You said..." Sera began, but she couldn't find much to add to that. Instead she just hit Dorian again.

"Excuse me for one moment," Dorian said, and he hurried ahead, gently pushing past other onlookers until he had breached the inner circle around Lavellan, where he caught Cassandra's eye. "Well! It seems I owe you a drink."

"Not now, Dorian," Cassandra said.

At that, Lavellan turned his head Dorian's way -- he was half-conscious, if even that much, but he still shot Dorian the same stupid grin he'd worn every time they'd spoken in Haven. "Hi there."

Dorian laughed. "You've just performed an actual miracle, and all you've got to say for yourself is _'hi there'?_ Are you all right, then?"

"You can clearly see that he is injured," Cassandra said, gesturing at Lavellan's slashed forehead, "and he has just spent hours in the cold. Surely these pleasantries can wait for another time."

"Aw," Lavellan said simply, his eyes slipping shut again. 

"Let me help you," Dorian said. "I could apply some proper warmth to--"

"That is not necessary, Dorian, thank you," Cassandra said. She looked beyond him, then: "Solas, you have healed him before. Perhaps you could help?"

"Certainly," Solas said, moving in out of Maker knows what shadows to kneel at Lavellan's side. 

Dorian resisted the urge to throw up his hands. "Very well then," he said, and he wheeled away from them, heading back to Varric and Sera, who edged in eagerly for an update. "All that we just went through and they _still_ think I'm here to cast some evil spell on the man." 

"You just have one of those faces," Varric said. 

"I think it's the mustache," Sera put in. "It looks twirly." 

"You think I grew this just for the sinister twirling possibilities, do you? ...Not entirely inaccurate." 

"Knew it..."

The three were quiet for a few minutes more, gazing at the activity around their prone Herald.

"How?" Varric asked. "How did he possibly survive all those things? What does this even mean?" 

"I don't know," Dorian said. "I can't possibly explain it."

"He's the Herald thingy," Sera said. "Has to be, now. So it doesn't really have to make sense, does it?"

"...No. I suppose it doesn't."

Varric sighed. "Well... so much for publishing this one. No one will ever believe this shit."


End file.
